I very much like the story and i would like to point out a thread i posted some time ago.en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/49838/breakout-idea-for-expansion-in-very-distant-future-xd#latest
i know i wont get any answer for it but i am having literal frost on my back if i hit at least a few things notice the date when i posted it please.
beside that i like the new story a lot. gj
only thing would be. Please dont give more explosions and aoes in combat it is really not fun to constantly try dodging all the exploding stufff x/
but beside that really nice LWS

Had some issues with Storm Tracker. They were little things but in the end they cost me both of the achievements in the instance and left me heavily stressed out:

-The Branded Priest Lieutenant kept phasing backwards to the point that he was clear out of the border of the instance. I couldn't get to him without risk of being kicked out and when I finally killed him he was so far away from Blish that I couldn't get back to him in time to keep the other spawns from interrupting him.

-The fire attacks that were constantly bouncing off of Balthazar's sword forced me into combat so I couldn't mount. Ended up doing the first 1/4th of the last bit on foot before I could finally mount up.

-Lastly the lack of directional arrows makes the final race extremely unclear. I lost a large amount of time on the platform with the heavy wind blowing over it because I thought the game was telling me that wasn't the correct way to go.

My only complaint so far is that in the first story part, was that it was not intuitive on how to move the scared people around. Unless I have forgotten, no other mechanic in the game works like that. It was frustrating to just stand there yelling at them wondering why they run randomly around until you figure out the controls.

If you think balancing is only driven by performance and justified by comparisons to other classes then prepare to be educated:

I love this new map a lot. Great work btw. I love how each area has its own unique style and color scheme. There is something to do in every little corner of the map. For some reason it seems much, much bigger. Plus the Jungle Anomaly area was fun to see. A bit of HoT Maguuma maps here in the desert. Plus there is a flax farm! It is more spread out, but still a beautiful place to visit while node farming if you have the time.

*Summary:
- Liked the episode been more ambitious and the better quality in characters, story and story instances.
- Was nice to have more collectables, the new mechanics and the new world boss.
- Take care of too soon releases, bugs kill the experience.

*Overview:
- I like the direction you guys are taking with the quality upgrades, but you need to test them better.

*Map:
- Didn't like the room dimensions, they also did not allow to have more hearts.
- You guys need to introduce better the hearts when they are not story progression connected (is good that they are not always tied to the story progression).
- This was more notable in the plant seeds heart.
- Please make the hearts vendors perma unlocked after the first completion, the heart completion more rewarding and add bags, etc. to buy on hearts, will help replayability and not enforce people in heart completion to buy.
- Is nice to have two adventures and not all to be races.
- Liked the use of the beetle in the map.
- Please make the giant rock in the map explorable and never do that again.
- Nice new world boss, the best of all the LSs ones.

*Other:
- Having two armor sets and more collectables was a plus.
- Sunspear refuge is good but you it generated hype, also could be better to not drop it out of the story after this released.

*Story:
- Each story instance was solid, with a lot to do, good story and not forced, overexpanded or too small.
- Liked the new strong character: Sapphire and the expanding of Koss. They are well made, specially Sapphire.
- Eir is a super terrible mother and the mist distortion of her voice make it feel like it was unnatural and not the proper progression of the story, like: we need to make - ---Braham more mature now, insert random plot conversation.
- Should have tested more the raptor escape.
- The cinematics were good and immersive., the world boss is the best for the LSs, the emotions in the story make it better
- I don't liked some parts of the plot, like the different places rooms or Kralk becoming a universe threatening thread, but thats my test.
- Didn't like the small time skip were we aren't involved: awaken are free and not in a coma state, Aurene is good and have been chased by Kralk, Dragon Guard in the after Joko meeting and we go later without knowing anything.

*Mechanics:
- The sniper fight was very interesting and the use of destructibles was good (hope to see more of them).
- The spider breeder movement and attack was good (check war of god for more uses of that mechanics), could have made her to drop us in mid movement if we did the hits well.
- The mastery felt shallow after the beetle. Perhaps you should quality upgrade them, either in quality or quantity depending of the needs and the episode.

Allow us to replay the cinematics by a ingame menu that collects them.

I honestly like how Koss showed up, too me it seemed very fitting. Along with how we got into the map at the beginning, I love the small details.

The story is getting very ominous with everything above ground going to hell and I thought that was a good way to come back to “Suns Refuge”. I am absolutely in love with this episode and the emotion of it all, absolutely the best Living World Episode this season and is probably going to take the top spot out of all of them.

Zafirah....until I figured out what was going on, I was cursing all of your guts....once figured out, I actually liked it. Something completely different and didn’t expect a few covers to explode in my face. Side note, using the mounts never crossed my mind due to the gas clouds.

Omg the Aurene cinematic and the realization of what her visions were.....I was crying like a baby. One of the best, if not best cinematic for living world episodes.
Blish, we have only had him a short while but this was a blow.

About the puzzle at the end of storm tracking...... I would prefer the time constraint not be so close, I understand the urgency but I wanted to look around more and with the shock of Blish..,,I fell to my death countless times and that is the only area I honestly didn’t like but then again, I suck sooo bad at any jumping puzzles.

Overall, I can not praise the Dev team enough for this episode. I am in love and to me, I haven’t felt this excited or having this much fun since POF launch.

My only reservation is how disjointed the cliffhanger at the end will feel, if the same team doesn’t do the next episode.

Keep up the amazing work.
PS the new raptor mount skin should have been a complete package for all mounts, I would have sold a kidney to buy that package.

Interesting map with the different biomes and the brand cutting across. The roadways make getting around by roller beetle a breeze, and enjoyable. The water-fall is lovely.

The 'Bond of Vigor' mastery - always happy to get a new mastery, but this feels like oddly like a solution looking for a problem. This mastery is clearly aimed at one mount: the roller beetle. It's of little use on the other mounts, which all regenerate endurance quickly. It feels like the roller beetle was given poor endurance regen in the first place so this mastery would have a purpose when it came out. Unlike 'Bond of Life' which is very useful but used strategically, this one is a necessity. I spam it whenever possible. There's just no reason not to. It's a fix for a problem that didn't need to exist. As such, this mastery might as well not be a button on your mount's utility bar but just an inherent increase in the endurance regen, like a trait.

The Pet Rock bounty - I love this guy! What made it even more memorable was the hurricane that came through as we were fighting! The tension as it got closer, then we were lifted in the air, spun around and made our way back to finish the fight. Very funny!

The djinn bounty in the south-east corner who moves around, even going between the mainland and that little island - I can't decide if he's annoying or not with all that running around. It's certainly different, and kudos for that.

The hurricane - not only an interesting environmental effect but helpful too!

The repeatable hearts - I was slow to come around to repeatable hearts, since some - like the non-repeatable kind, were tedious. But the ones in this episode were alright, even pleasant.

The mushroom cave - a very interesting place, given the conversations in there and the ...gravity of the situation. So many possibilities!

Ibaru - when he had us all in his tractor-beam-rays or whatever, my chrono managed to escape with Blink and was about to deal with Ibaru when ..somebody else showed up and interfered. Was it intentional that Blink can get us out of that lock, and if so can I deal with Ibaru myself?

Exploration has been pleasantly gentle this time around. And Springer has actually been useful! Finally. Map looks pretty busy, so that's good.

But... Water does not seem coded for Skimmer speed. Enemies are kinda . . eh. And... Can we please shed more than one stack of branded spikey glue thing when we dodge-roll? Sitting on perpetually 7-8 stacks because we get a dodge once every 7 seconds or so (with Vigor) ends up meaning a lot of wasted time and defensive resources in dealing with it.

Still, spirits are high so far. Curious to see where this will go.

Many alts! Handle it!

"A condescending answer might as well not be an answer at all."
-Eloc Freidon.5692

Zafirah's fight: I feel like it was really unfair, idk, she was really OP compared to everything else we faced and then she'd just use finisher on us while we couldn't even interrupt her with 2nd rally skill. It was frustrating and I never want to do it again. Like honestly, she was way more OP than Balthazar, it was ridiculous.

Think positive, man! The next time we have to kill a dragon we just send her first... she might one shot it, or/and use the unstopable finisher xD

I understand that Living World and the Personal Story is essentially designed as a single-player experience, but as someone who frequently plays the Story multiplayer with my flatmates, I have found the increasing trend of "instant death" and "near instant death" mechanics incredibly aggravating as group content. Because the pace of these episode instances frequently demands constant moving or instant death: e.g., fire/invisible laser jumping puzzles, sniper one-shot kills, move-move-move or die to the purple storm. There is little forgiveness, and doing these things as a group an almost nightmare. And when playing with people who are more casual than I am, then this often leaves us in situations where other players are downed and/dead, but we can do nothing about it. Note: Having to repeatedly use Revive Orbs to get across the Deadeye encounter (or other similar ones) due to how multiplaying the personal story works is NOT FUN. So we are variously stuck dead and unable to enjoy the story content unless we all die. Or we leave some dead, and they can't experience what is happening, because they are dead in one area while the story is happening in another. All of this undercuts a lot of the drama of the story. This creates an uneven experience for multiplay. It's not fun, and I hope that ArenaNet takes this into consideration when designing encounters like the Deadeye or Storm Tracking.

Secondly, my flatmates also reported that they disliked how so many trash mobs in the map (and in PoF) waste your time with mechanics clearly meant to dismount you. The result is not that that they were encouraged to fight. No, they just kept running until they were eventually out of the fight and mounted back up again. These sort of PoF trash mobs do not make for an engaging map. It just makes mobs more annoying to the point that discourages fighting.

I will also add that Braham's apology has not worked with my female flatmates. At this point, they both want Braham gone. (They also remain annoyed by Kas and Marjory as well as Rytlock Edgelord. Indifferent to Taimi and Rox.) They saw no reason to keep Zafira around, especially after she killed and injured so many members of the Pact first. Regardless of whether she was in a vision, they saw her as a liability who faced no consequences for her actions.

Not completed the story been too busy exploring. I am totally feeling this map. It's nice to go in a map and recognize places from the first game. Enjoyed it much more not looking at guides and working stuff out.
Still miss my dervish, bless her she knows jahai buffs well.

Some feedback about one specific event: ""Defend the Chantry's entrances against the Branded"

This event is placed awkwardly. It failed miserably every time I attempted it (4 or 5 times now) because one of the three defense locations, the one nearest the chantry WP and zone entrance, spawns large groups of level 81 and/or 82 enemies. The spawns at this location are overtuned because of the ever-present people at the WP/entrance who are not contributing (probably AFK) but counted as part of the event.

Good episode. Great map, good mechanics, interesting cinematics. But...Pristress of Balthazar is whining. Wrong. She is a deadeye. Wrong. She says be proud of the dead. Wrong. I paraphrase: "You like Balthazar? You will like Aurene. She has Balthazars magic." Wrong. Throw Balthazars sword away. Wrong. Rename Balthazar with Balthaddon.

Just a minor issue I've had with some achievement collections and this release has one such again... the 40 Jahai Coins - when designing these large, same-item type collections, please try to not just number them 1 through N and make a plain list out of it. This not only devalues the items or the fiction behind them (in this case they were meant to be coins which would be rare, lol) but gameplay-wise it becomes tedious and unfriendly... we have no hint about the location for each item so unless we play it combing the map terrain thoroughly, coming back later will mean to have to look in most places all over again.

The way I think would be fitting for this type of collection is how the Mursaat Tokens were done in S3E2 in Ember Bay, with unique hints for each that actually made exploring the intricate geometry of the map enjoyable - you could even add a bit of lore, reference and humor in the flavor text of the hints.

Great episode, bugs notwithstanding, one of the best so far. Good story instances with some crazy bits, Sun's Refuge is a fun piece of content, and the map is nice (especially the anomalous parts). And full armor sets in a LS episode too. Plus tornado riding.

When compared to the last episode, this one is a dream. I love it. I like the map, I LOVE the throw-back touches to LS1, LW2 & HoT maps

IMO we need more interconnection and/or use of masteries outside to their original expansion, just think of the number of ppl who would get HoT just to train gliding, mushrooms and updrafts!

I still firmly believe the base HP of the mounts needs to increase and the mounts need some form of mitigation or "shield" mode. Getting knocked off in one-shot and then hyper-focussed by an Occultist who drains your health in 3s is really, just not fun because you don't have time to defend yourself.

I am still not sure how SR will replace the home instance, but if that is your intent, I would love to see us be able to gain the nodes etc we have already acquired.

I was disappointed that SR is an instance as I was hoping it would be like Passkey areas where you still have access to full map chat etc and I would like to stay in SR when I log out. (I understand that because it is tied to the story, you instanced it but we had Strongholds in SWTOR that were still part of the map chat etc but only accessible to the player and their party-mates).

THANK YOU for the Desert Fox, his animations are brilliant and I cracked up when I jumped into the pond and there he was. My only small issue is that he gets in the way when trying to interact with objects so rather than snacking or playing fetch, he gets told to patrol the area or stay.

The collections are fun but the drop rate on some of the Crystal Collection items seems extremely low when compared to the Door to the Past collection drops. I don't believe it should be 100% drop rate, but there is something off balance with the different collection drops.

Speaking of which, the Convergence of Sorrow II is calling for a +1 Swim Speed infusion but they do not exist in the game

I really liked the Tornados, they were like Updrafts for Griffons!

I am struggling to get the Hydra down because the pre-event fails constantly. I think, it is poorly timed because it is often up at the same time as the Shatterer. So I would like to see the timers increased and/or adjusted so the other events do not spawn during the shatterer. Overlap is fine, it is just hard when both pre-events spawn within 5 mins of each other.

sigh why did it have to be Taimi...

The Xunlai chest is a tease. Nice throwback, but such a tease that we can't interact with it.

I forgot to add A -- As others have mentioned, I really don't like the fact that the Defend the Chantry's Entrances always fails because you need so many people to defend it. Perhaps this was an attempt at an additional map meta but it just isn't working.

I forgot to add B -- The rate of which we can gain Mistonium seems a bit low when compared to the LW3 maps and even Sandswept Isles. The nodes are not a guaranteed drop nor are the chests. In Ember Bay, you had more hearts to make up the difference. By no means should we earn the additional gear skins overnight, but with the drop rate of Mistonium, the gold heavy second collection, it really just seems like we are being a smidge punished for being to quick about the achievements. TBH, I would rather you time gate the second and/or third collection over restricting the drop rate on the nodes and chests. Especially when the heart rewards and a number of events do not give Mistonium.

Really well done guys, you deserved those waffles and a couple of beers too.

Best update ever.
Feel like you fit the best of GW2 into this release, and will be happy to keep playing it. Great new experiences in the story
Great level of challenge on the map. Great designs.
Except riftstalkers.
TL:DR
The most amazing update to the game yet, expansions included. I've been buzzing for 2 days since finishing it. It has everything. Old friends, an elder dragon, Joko, the jungle, new world boss (kind of).
I can't wait to replay the episode story soon, whereas thinking of doing episode 3's story again seems like a chore. The deadeye instance was an incredible first for the game, the nastiest spider in the game, (you know the one) and the space jumps in the mist were very trippy.
The map is quite dangerous to navigate too. The branded have a lot of range to hit mounts, and I've used like 3 revive orbs this episode like I've never done before. Mobs chip away at your health throughout the shatterer fight. Love all the options in that fight.
Always being mindful of the Claw of Kralkatorrik makes the map feel alive.
The one thing I don't like are the riftstalkers. Less interesting karka with no lore that stand in place taking little damage with a repeating pattern of aoe.

I know it's extra work, but pleeease keep doing cutscenes instead of the panned-out talking bits. GW2's aesthetic doesn't really let us easily zoom in to capture detail, but the cutscenes were great for keeping the focus right on the dialogue and speakers.

Still. No. Retry. Button. When there are achievements for "don't mess up not even once!" maybe we don't want to have to go through 10 minutes of exposition to do them again. Fail Faster. Let story instances get some of that sweet /gg action, would ya?

Many alts! Handle it!

"A condescending answer might as well not be an answer at all."
-Eloc Freidon.5692

The Good:
1: I liked the beginning: it was fun to see the people of elona arguing about the death of joko and mistrusting aurene. Thanks for the aurene heart animation, those make me always so happy . And Koss saving us was really nice .
2: The shatterer "fight" was awesome. I really like the detail that one NPC (I believe an awakened) was completely crushed. Also the animations of the shatterer were really cool. I am happy we did not fight the shatterer, bc I often do the world boss the shatterer, and killing him easily on my own would be a bit unbelievable for me.
3: OMG The doctor who/strange plot with time and space shenanigans was completely crazy. I love it! Kralky felt this patch so unbelievebly scary !
4: Yeeh, I really liked to see eir and snaff. The talk between eir and braham was well done. I am happy that Braham finally knows how much of a KITTEN he has been in the past.
5: I really like walking in open world with Blish . The new map is really nice, mainly the ???-part
6: Glint`s return was nice .
7: I played this whole patch with a scourge support build (so my dps is a bit lower), and I was happy to see that there were often NPs I could support. So my build was still quite usefull .
8: The new home instance is nice.
9: The new map is nice. All the space/time shenanigans in the new map are really nice.

Well done. But please stop breaking my heart:
1: Why did you kill Blish ? Why? He was such a fun, cute and nice character. It made me always so happy to see him. He was one of my favorite characters. Blish was such an adorable little robot and I really liked him . Please bring him back. It would make me so happy to see him again. Please let us put him back together, or save him from the mists .
2:The Aurene cutscene was very beautifull and nicely done. But the ending with the glass breaking animation and the sad sound Aurene made.... Poor Aurene.
3: I had to cry when I told Taimi and Gorrik about the death of Blish. It was already so painfull, and then they tell me that Taimi is dying. OMG Arenanet, are you trying to break me? Why are you doing this to me?
Please safe Blish !

The Bad:
Sorry, but I am not a fan of Zafirah. Her boss fight was really annoying me. And she has kind-of the same secretive vibe as caithe, but then less believeable and fun. I dont really like her " we are not friends" attitude.

2 out of 10. A kitten of map just like all maps since POF came out. Single-player focus only in a mmo is the worst thing to do. Forgetable story and big map with no events at all plus trash collection all over again, just logged in once did story and all map in like 2 hours of content and since then i don't need the desire to log in again and i am back to just annoy me in old content like hot maps and pvp. People like me want from an mmo to be an mmo not a trash single player look alike game ... just look at how map is empty just as kourna, 0 comms becuase there is nothing on it, since all can solo most of it.

Just little things I need to add, that I forgot before....
Plz don't kill Blish, I like him a lot, he added something to the story... if you want leave braham somewherr I don't care, even that sub-act with him have not added a drop of compassion within me.... And what about Taimi... We theoratically lost 2 brains...

+++Number ONE fan of I.N.Q.U.E.S.T, don't worry, I'm chaotic-neutral. I like baddies in general. +++

I am blown away! Rarely do bother to write, since I prefer playing the game then to waste my time here, but this is one of the few situations, that make me write a review.

The whole episode is indeed the best so far ever and even better than the living world in Guild Wars Beyond. I don't know what influence that firing of these two people from your team have on this specific episode, but the narrative, the writing, the videos, mapping, accessibility, fun, etc etc etc.....It is the most immense and successful episode I've seen so far since Guild Wars 1. I wasn't fan of Guild Wars Nightfall for no reason.... BRAVO. Keep going and fire more people if that means you would do as legendary as this time! :* I love you.

Map:
The map itself is far better than the last ones. But i still miss a SW/DS kind of map. The Shatterer could've been a good opportunity for more map pressence...more pre-events. He is just parked and forgotten in a corner of the map which is sad for something that big. Even regular Shatterer in Blazeridge Steppes has more map influence.

Suns Refuge:
I expected more of it. But i get behind the idea of it being an experiment for the dev team.
Having said that, here are some things that bother me with the way they are now:

Why does the SR portal scroll put me all the way to the entrance rather than a point more central?

Collections...i'm not a big fan of them. I was hoping for SR would be a small version of the Guild Hall system. Maybe with the purpose of passively increasing map currency gains (Mistonium, Inscribed Shards etc.) or a sink for materials like essence of luck.

Finishing some of the collections feels empty. I have to speak to persons to start them but they end without any interaction with them. I pick up books and artifacts, they fill my inventory but somehow end up on a table. Even selling the artifacts ruins their value and meaning.

No NPC for bank, crafting or TP? OK this would lead to empty main cities and less players communication but then again why not use "order halls" for professions or a chosen fraction in the future? I know other games do this but i like this system.

Story:
The story was ok. I have given up on Taimi and Braham to ever get me to worry about them.

Haven't opened up the collections and things yet. The map is fun. I enjoy the hunting of animals and the events and rifts are great (pretty sure I played that game though ) and lots of great achievements to do (though, I'm a bit concerned there are going to be too many story ones required of me and I won't get to complete the meta for the staff ). Of course, the big Shatterer 2: The Second One event is great. It's a neat map and a great story.

The story hit me in the feels. Just finished it. Thinking about taking a break the rest of the day and picking up tomorrow.

In the event I don't get a chance, thank you all for the company and help when I needed it from time to time.

As an addition, please could the team start to take on board our inventory management concerns. Too many things need deleting or selling once ticked off a collection. Everything should either auto clear or never end up in our inventory. We know that interactions alone is enough for a collection, so why the need for a disposable item too?

The item for Crystal attunement collection for example. Once interacted with the npc, it stays in your inventory, not making it clear that the use for it has gone, instead still indicating it needs handing in.

Proactivity and planning ahead please!!

What sleep is here? What dreams there are in the unctuous coiling of the snakes mortal shuffling. weapon in my hand. My hand the arcing deathblow at the end of all things. The horror. The horror. I embrace it. . .

How great is everything about this update!? The new map, the continually better and better story telling and cinematics, Sun's Refugue, all the minor additions, man, I could go on and on. Just finished legacy and only have explored the story sections of the new map l, but so far I'm truly impressed and love all the hard work the devs continually put into their game. Can't wait to see how the story ends this chapter and where it's heading for future updates.

Up 1. The fast pace of the combat. Those were good fights, racing away from a storm, rodeo with a spider, awesome.
Up 2. The cinematics, we got so many curtscenes this episode, especially the visions of Aurene caught me off guard, positively. That was AWAESOME!

Down 1. The loyalists were stupidly loyal. Like, i get it, even after his fall they’re loyal. But there’s a thing like stupid loyal. They’d dive in a grave if there as a rumor of Joko being there. Self sabotage hardly seems like loyalty, and more like plain stupudity.
Down 2. The sniper mercy. We saw her in a vision, and so she gets a free pass to mercy, and immediate amnesty for all her assassinations and (attempted) kills? Why was mercy even an option, let alone the only one.she should be locked down, stripped of her gun, if we are not to kill her.

(Extra down 3. Even now with Snaff, no closure on snaff’s interactions with Kralky, or any closure on Zojja. When we heard snaff mentioning ‘thats where that came from’ i had half a thought Snaff takked to Zojja... in the mists

To defeat the dragons, see the good in them.
Zhaitan reunites lost ones, primordus creates fertile land, mordremoth spreads the green, and jormag..
..jormag? Who's that?

Well I liked the story as I mentioned but now things are moving along, I'm not sure what to do with Sun's Refuge and there is no point or indication of how or why to upgrade it. I found the runes but that's a repeatable thing for a chest so that was a bit meh. The requiem armor set was pretty cool to do. I'm not done but after the first two pieces, it does become a grind again and I'm losing interest rapidly in spending time there. Though I might run another alt through the story, which I didn't expect to want to do again.

The thing is that other than the requiem armor there is nothing really of interest to me and the mistonium farm is not a great one. It's a bit all over the place. So story is great. The map looks great (in spite of being a bit bored with the branded stuff), but I'll get the first armor set complete and then I think that'll be that. There is some strange detail work that kind of ruins the aesthetic for me so I'm not getting the full sets after the first one. And well exotic armor is easy to get so it's really just about the looks for me.

"In my experience, if you can't say what you mean, you can never mean what you say. The details are everything." ~ Minister Durano

As I already wrote in another thread, my rating for this episode is a solid 10/10:

I haven't found a single thing I can criticize at this point. It is an awesome episode, the best so far (my absolute favorite, to be precise ).

The writing, as I foresaw, is getting better and better - the increase in quality during LWS4 has been phenomenal. Every single character is on-point, and the ambiente NPCs are rich and three-dimensional as well. It feels like a living, breathing environment. I hope it stays on this high level.

The story was wonderful as well, I enjoyed every single minute of it.

I love the map (design, explorability, variety in conent, etc.), and as for Sun's Refuge, I sincerely hope that it will be expanded further through future content (as it would end up being a huge disappointment in retrospect if it wasn't).
.

Edit: Okay, there is one thing that still bothers me about the writing, as I am just playing through the content for the second time, on my Charr: it not always fits your character's race. My charr being so "soft" and calling Braham "family", although Charr who grew up in the Black Citadel have no understanding of the term (due to being raised in a fahrar) but only for warbands. You are already trying to put slight differences into the dialogue depending on race, but it requires even more attention IMO.

It's been a few days, hope you guys are still reading! Just found the time to finish the main story, and I'd give it a solid 9/10. Please note that I haven't had time to complete the map and all the activities yet.

The Good
- The Aurene cinematic was great. I was in the 'duh' category in the first few runs of Aurene's death, and yet by the end I was whimpering and going 'nononono please make it stop Aurene no'. If that's not an effective cinematic, I don't know what is.
- Running the Koss-Kossan subplot throughout it is really nice and makes you feel invested in him.
- Blish's character went from 'another asura' to 'awww I like that kid' this episode.
- The beginning with all the different factions of Elona. While I understand that they necessarily can't be the main focus, I'd LOVE to see more about them and how they end up.
- I actually really like the sniper segment. All those Medal of Honor trauma flooding back, lol.

The Bad
- The writing can get heavyhanded and uneven. Neither of these are new to GW2's writing, and I understand that a lot of it comes from the challenges of writing an MMO that needs to be vague enough and yet needing all players to be on the same page for the important developments. However, this one went heavyhanded in a new way that I'm not sure I like. Case example : Taimi's reveal at the end. It's made in a fashion where she's talking at us instead of talking to the Commander, and it took me out of the moment. Disappointing for a plot thread I've been looking forward to since LS1.
- Speaking of which, the Commander! They've been really reactive this episode, what with all the other things (which will list in the next section), but it took me out of the moment that...the Commander who nearly panicked when Taimi cried in LS3 had little reaction over her reveal? They didn't get a line in response except the one we manually say to her and can miss? It's all about Blish, this kid they've known for a few months?
- Braham comforting the Commander is great. About time someone does that for their trauma conga line. However, unless he's trying to comfort Taimi and referring to his Eir grief/their past griefs at the same time, calling the episode name after Blish is a little bit over the top. Blish's death is tragic to be sure, but the Commander has suffered worse tragedies. Their sky is studded with guiding stars at this point, and it's kind of.....unfair to single Blish out. Perhaps it'd have been better to make him say that as a catch-all to whoever died on their watch.

The Wonderful
- The map! Of course I haven't finished it yet so this opinion may change, but I've really loved the map with all its nooks and crannies so far! I was almost sad that I had to tear myself away from it to play through the story, lol.
- The conclusion of Braham's conflict. I feel that Braham is a little one-note this episode compared to how multifaceted he was in the last one, but I can't even complain because that was G R E A T. 10/10 will stay beside him to the end again.
- Making callbacks to Core GW2 with Trahearne and Orr and the fungi/Destiny's Edge, The Pact! It's about time the Commander says something in the main story about those things again, and I understand that mentally they just got to that point last episode maybe BUT.
- The VA did a knockout job with this one again. Kudos to whoever is involved.
- You managed to realize the concept of Elder Dragons as a force of nature. This is something that GW2's been struggling with ever since Core release, and this time I'd say that you NAILED IT.
- The writing for the vast majority of the episode. The pacing is a bit uneven at spots (the transition from the Elona plot to the Kralky plot, bringing up Trahearne's favourite poem), but I've enjoyed the vast, vast majority of it. The sniper section in particular managed to make me think about the war themes of the past episodes in a new way, which is something I'm thankful for.

TL;DR --- Loved all my time in the story except the one bit at the end with the Taimi cinematic. Looking forward to the next one!

I would say that story telling has declined significantly in this episode. The first instance was a bit odd as well with The Commander sounding panicky. On a positive note, the instance wasn't so difficult that it distracted from the story.

@Obtena.7952 said:
My only complaint so far is that in the first story part, was that it was not intuitive on how to move the scared people around. Unless I have forgotten, no other mechanic in the game works like that. It was frustrating to just stand there yelling at them wondering why they run randomly around until you figure out the controls.

I really liked the Convergence of Sorrow I: Elegy achievement. I did not mind the running back and forth. It told a bittersweet story along the way and I found myself very much engaged. Very nice story writing there.